Method of making tufted terry products



Nov. l, 1949 E, D. MlLLER 2,486,963

METHOD OF MAKING TUFTED TERRY PRODUCTS Filed Dec' 18' 1945 2 sheets-sheet 1 l '071/ u -4= f3 l? l Nov. l, 1949 E. D. MILLER 2433,963

METHODOF MAKING TUFTED TERRY PRODUCTS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Dec. 18, 1945 im MMM@ Patented Nov. 1, 1949 METHOD OF MAKING TUFTED TERRY PRODUCTS Eugene Douglas Miller, Rahway, N. J., assignor,

by mesne assignments, to pany, La Grange, Ga., a corporation Callaway Mills Comof Georgia Application December 18, 1945, Serial No. 635,747

This invention relates to terry products, such as bath towels, carrying designs formed by yarns of appropriate colors which have been passed through the fabric in selected areas by means of a tufting machine to form tufts'projecting from the face of the material. More particularly, the invention is concerned with a novel method of making a tufted terry product which is superior to similar prior articles in the respects that the tuft yarns are held more securely in place in lthe fabric, the tufts give a better coverage of the base fabric in the design areas and have a better appearance, and, at the completion of the tufting operation, the design is deviod of stray lengths of terry or ground yarns or of terry loops projecting through the tufted areas and visible at the face of the design'.

Terry products with tufted designs have commonly been made heretofore by a procedure which involves weaving a terry fabric on a standard terry loom after which the grey goods are subjected to the usual bleaching and finishing Operations. In those operations, the sizing carried by the terry and ground warp yarns is removed, so that those yarns become soft and eX- pand somewhat and the individual terry loops tend to become erect and to twist together. The designs are then formed on the bleached and finished fabric by stitching the tuft yarns in place on a tufting machine, which includes a needle for passing the tuft yarns through the fabric and a looper which cooperates with the needle to form the tuft yarn into loops and to cut the loops to produce tufts.

Tufted terry materials made in the manner above described have a number of objectionable features which result from their method of manufacture, as, for example, the tuft yarns are not securely held in place in the fabric and are liable to be pulled out during use of the fabric. The reason is that, when the needle of the tufting machine carries a loop of tuft yarn through the fabric, the closely adjacent yarns in the fabric at the point of penetration of the needle are spread apart to form an opening suiciently large for the passage of the needle and the two legs of the tuft yam loop carried by the eye of the needle. When the needle is retracted, the tuft yarn loop is retained in the opening by the action of the looper, but it fits loosely in the opening, because the displaced fabric yarns are not resilient and do not spring back to their original positions. In the completed fabric, the legs of each tuft looped about yarns at the back of the fabric lie within and are only loosely held in adjacent openings, and, as a result, the tufts can be easily dislodged during handling or use of the tufted product. v

Another objectionable feature of the present tufted terry products arises from the fact that, at the time the tufting operation is performed, the terry loops of the fabric have risen and the individual loops have twisted together and the fibres in such yarns have separated as a result Of the removal of the sizing from the yarns in the bleaching and finishing operations. Accordingly, when the needle of the tufting machine passes a loop of tuft yarn through the fabric, it frequently happens that the needle will pierce ,a yarn in a terry loop, so that the yarn is broken and the broken ends are carried out past the ends of the tufts in the design. In other instances, the terry loop may be caught by the needle and pulled out of the fabric past the level of the face of the design. In either case, the lengths or loops of terry yarn, which are thus projected out of the design and are both variable in length and of a color contrasting with that of the tuft yarns, are readily noticeable and give the design a ragged unfinished appearance. The stray lengths of terry yarn and terry loops must, accordingly, be trimmed off in a subsequent operation and this adds to the cost of production.

I have found that by making tufted terry products by the method of the invention, it is possible to eliminate the objectionable features of the products made by the prior method above described and the terry articles produced by the new procedure are superior to prior tufted terry products in appearance and in other characteristics. i

For a better understanding of the invention, reference may be had to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. l is a longitudinal sectional view on an enlarged scale of a conventional terry fabric as taken from the loom;

Fig. la i-s a view similar to Fig. l showing the terry fabric after it has been subjected to bleaching;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the terry fabric as taken from the loom;

Fig. 2a is a plan view of the material shown in Fig. la after bleaching;

Fig. 3 is a View similar to Fig. 1 showing the operation of tufting the unbleached material; V Fig. 4 is a View similar to Fig. 3 showing the tufted material which has been bleached after tufting; l

Fig. 5 is a fragmentary plan view showing the displacement'of the yarns in the fabric during the passage of the tufting needle therethrough;

Fig. 6 is a viewsimilar to Fig. 5 showing the gripping of the tuft yarns as the result of the shrinking of the fabric during the bleaching operation; and

Fig. 7 is a longitudinal sectional view illustrating the tufting of a bleached terry product and' showing the breaking of terry loop yarns by the action of the needle.

The terry fabric illustrated in Fig. 1 is of usual construction and it includes ground warp yarns I and I I in two sets interwoven with lling yarns I2. Two sets of terry yarns I3, I4 are employed and they form loops I3a, Ma projecting from the fabric at opposite faces thereof. In preparation for the weaving of the fabric, the ground and terry warp yarns have been sized and the fibers in the yarns are, accordingly, bound together. As a result, the yarns forming the loops in the fabric are somewhat stiff and springy, and, as the fabric is taken up on the loom, the loops on opposite faces are all bent to lie in the same direction and have the regular appearance shown in Figs. l and 2.

In the practice of the new method, the fabric as taken from the loom and in the grey or unbleached condition is delivered to the tufting machine for the application of the tufts forming the design. Such tufting machines are of well known construction and they include a needle I5, through the eye I5a of which the tuft yarn I6 is passed, and in the tufting operation, the fabric is supplied to the tufting machine upside down,

so that the needle inserts the tuft yarn through g;

the fabric from its rear face. When the needle reaches its lowermost point, a looper engages the loop of yarn carried by the needle and retains that loop as the needle is retracted. Ordinarily, the looper retains a number of loops before releasing any of them and the looper may be provided With a knife for cutting the loops to form the tufts at the face of the fabric or the tufting machine may include a. separate knife for the purpose. f

When the needle starts its downward movement to pass a loop of tuft yarn through the unbleached fabric, the point of the needle first enters the layer of pile formed by the terry loops at the back of the fabric, and, since the yarn in these loops is sized and the loops are somewhat springy, a. loop struck by the point of the needle will not be pierced but will slip to one side. As the needle moves down 'farther and penetrates the ground of the fabric, the ground warp and filling threads will be forced aside to form an opening I1, through which the needle and the two lengths of tuft yarn forming the loop carried by the needle may pass. Such displacement of the fabric yarns is easy, because the fabric has been somewhat loosely Woven, so that, when it is shrunk in bleaching, Ythe yarns will not be drawn too tightly together and thus make the fabric too stiff. The displacement of the fabric yarns referred to is diagrammatically illustrated in Fig. 5, in which adjacent ground warp yarns I0, Hand adjacent filling yarns I2 are shown as pushed aside by the needle and the two lengths of tuft yarns I6. It will be evident that, upon retraction of the needle, the tuft yarns I6 are held only loosely in the opening, since their combined cross-sections are substantially less than the cross-section of the opening and the yarns are not resilient and, accordingly, do not tend to close up the opening.

When the tufting has been completed to provide the terry product with the desired tufted the lengths of the tuft yarns forming the exposed legs of the tufts open up and bloom out, as indicated at I8, and adjacent tufts intermingle and form a substantially' uniform surface in the design area. Also, the sizing is removed from the yarn forming the terry loops and the loops tend to assume the twisted and somewhat erect condition, indicated at I3b. The loops Ida at the face of the fabric have been embedded among the tufts in the tufting operation, and, when the tults fluff up and bloom out, they overlie the terry loops, so

that when the latter have been ie-sized and have twisted, as shown at I4b, the terry loops can not` force their way out beyond the ends of the tufts. The opening up of the yarns forming the tufts as a result of the bleaching operation, accordingly, serves to conceal both the ground of the fabric and the terry loops in the front face thereof.

The application of the tuft yarns to the fabric while the latter is in thegrey condition affords another advantage as follows. In the grey goods, the layers of pile at each face of the base fabric are relatively thin, -because the pile loops have been laid flat,` and the base fabric is relatively loosely woven and is likewise thin. In the tufting operation, it is necessary that the ends of the tufts should lie outward from the face of the fabric beyond the level of the terry loops, but,

since the layers of pile are thin and the fabric is also thin, the legs of the tufts need have only a relatively short length to obtain the desired'effect. If thetufting were applied to the bleached terry fabric, much longer lengths of tuft yarn would be required to form the legs of each tuft, because the bleaching causes the terry loops to become erect and also causes the base fabric to become thicker as a result of the shrinkage during the bleaching. The tufting of the grey terry fabric thus permits shorter tufts to be used and this results in a saving in tuft yarn. Also, the finished design formed by the tufts applied to the grey fabric may lie slightly below the level that the surface of the pile in untufted areas reaches afterA bleaching and this causes the tufted designs to have the appearance of being Aembedded in the pile.

Another advantage of applying the tuft yarns prior to the bleaching is that the bleach liquor reacts with the dyestuis in the tuft yarns and makes the colors of those yarns distinctly brighter and more delicate. The colors thus produced could not be easily obtained in the dyeing of the tuft yarns.

- The4 action of the bleaching and finishing operations on the terry fabric shown in Figs. 1 and 2, is illustrated in Figs. la, and 2a, in which it will be seen that the terry loops I3c and I 4c have become somewhat erect and have twisted together as a result of the removal of the size therefrom. In the pile surface of the bleached fabric, the loops |30, Mc extend in random directions and the yarns are relatively soft and have no springiness. When the tufting needle is passed tends to penetrate and break the terry loop yarns, such as that shown at I8, and the broken ends of the yarns are frequently forced out through the tufted areas. Also, in other instances, as shown at 20, a terry loop may be caught by the needle and the entire loop pulled out past the surface of the design. The result is that the broken ends and loops of terry yarn projecting out of the tufted areas give the designs of fabrics tufted after bleaching a ragged appearance and the lengths of terry yarns exposed beyond the tufting must be removed in a subsequent operation at additional expense.

I claim:

1. A method of making terry products which comprises sizing terry pile warp yarns, interweaving the sized terry pile warp yarns with ground warp and filling yarns to form a fabric from which terry loops project on both faces, passing tuft yarns through selected areas of the fabric from one face to form U-shaped tufts having bights at said face and legs projecting from the opposite face, bleaching the tufted fabric, and washing the bleached fabric.

2. A method of making terry products which comprises sizing terry pile warp yarns, interweaving the sized terry pile warp yarns with ground warp and filling yarns to form a fabric from which lterry loops project on both faces, passing tuft yarns through selected areas of the fabric from one face to form U-shaped tufts having bights at said face and legs projecting from the opposite face, and bleaching and shrinking the tufted material to cause the fabric yarns to grip the tuft yarns.

3. A method of making terry products which comprises sizing terry pile warp yarns, interweaving the sized terry pile warp yarns with ground warp and filling yarns to form a fabric from which terry loops project on both faces, needlingtuftyarnsthroughselectedareasofthe 6 fabric from one face to form U-shaped tufts having bights tightly enclosing fabric yarns at said face, said tufts having legs passing through the fabric to project at the opposite face, and bleaching the tufted fabric in an operation in which the size is removed from the terry warp yarns and the fabric yarns shrink into tight contact with the legs of the tuft yarns.

4. A method of making terry products which comprises sizing terry pile warp yarns, interweaving the sized terry pile warp yarns with ground warp and filling yarns to form a fabric from which terry loops project on both faces, taking up the fabric and causing the terry loops on both faces of the fabric to lie generally parallel to the plane of the fabric and in the same direction, needling tuft yarns through selected areas of the fabric from one face to form U-shaped tufts having bights tightly enclosing fabric yarns at said face, said tufts having legs passing through the fabric to project at the opposite face, and subjecting the tufted fabric to bleaching and finishing operations in which the size is removed from f the terry yarns, the free ends' of the tuft yarns open up, and the fabric yarns shrink into tight contact with the legs of the tuft yarns.

EUGENE DOUGLAS MILLER.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in they ille of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS 

